Well, what you'll have to do is to configure a new protocol for SOAP. I'd say you have two options: (1) Try to use a 3rd party or freeware Java FTP implementation and then take the Apache SOAP or AXIS implementations and attach the SOAP handlers to that or (2) Start from the Apache SOAP or AXIS implementations and write a "worker" thread based on them that checks a directory for the presence of a file -- which it will then process as a SOAP message. This is probably the easiest route. For an idea as to how to do this, take a look at the latest IBM Web Services Toolkit available from http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com. It has an example of adapting Apache SOAP to MQ Series -- the concepts are the same. Kyle ------------------ Kyle Brown, Author of Enterprise Java (tm) Programming with IBM Websphere See my homepage at http://members.aol.com/kgb1001001 for other WebSphere information.

Ravi, Any particular reason you would like to do SOAP over FTP. Sanjay

Kyle Brown
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posted Jan 02, 2002 17:49:00

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Actually, I've suggested to a customer that they look into SOAP over FTP once. Their problem was that they received a LOT of file updates from different vendors via FTP (product catalog updates, that is). They were using their own proprietary Comma-delimited format. I suggested that they move to XML and use SOAP as a "command wrapper" to do the different record changes (Insert,Update, Delete). For free, this customer would also (with the same set of SOAP handler classes that handled batch updates) get "interactive" updates via HTTP. I'm not sure if they ever took my advice... Kyle ------------------ Kyle Brown, Author of Enterprise Java (tm) Programming with IBM Websphere See my homepage at http://members.aol.com/kgb1001001 for other WebSphere information. [This message has been edited by Kyle Brown (edited January 02, 2002).]

kyle... Using SOAP over FTP makes me to think of couple of questions.. One of the intention of making SOAP is so that it is firewall friendly.. How can it be firewall friendly when it is used over FTP? Also when http is used it is more like a request/response dispatcher protocol, but in ftp we do have a live connection for a while... Using SOAP wont the performance be terrible? Please post your comments Ragu

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posted Jan 04, 2002 06:08:00

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Originally posted by Ragu Sivaraman: kyle... Using SOAP over FTP makes me to think of couple of questions.. One of the intention of making SOAP is so that it is firewall friendly.. How can it be firewall friendly when it is used over FTP? Also when http is used it is more like a request/response dispatcher protocol, but in ftp we do have a live connection for a while... Using SOAP wont the performance be terrible? Please post your comments Ragu

Actually, you're mistaking the PROTOCOL (SOAP) for the TRANSPORT (HTTP). SOAP itself is totally transport independent. Apache SOAP (for isntance) comes with an implementation of SOAP over SMTP (the email protocol). How's that for latency! But seriously, if you read the WSDL specification and the SOAP specification and think about them for a while, one of the things that will hit you is that there are two ways to use SOAP -- the basic terms for them are RPC (Remote Procedure Call) -- send a request and get back a response pretty much immediately "Messaging" -- send a command but don't expect a response (similar to CORBA oneway messages). The second way of using SOAP is more useful for SMTP, JMS and (the subject of our discussion) FTP. Obviously you wouldn't want to try to use request/response (RPC) messaging on these protocols. In the case I mentioned above, the vendors that were updating the catalog didn't expect an immediate response -- in fact in the old system they NEVER received a response. Yes, one of the benefits of SOAP over HTTP is that it is firewall friendly. However, SMTP and FTP are also firewall friendly for the same reasons -- they are well-known and easily controlled protocols. Just think about all of the sites that allow anonymous FTP! They're all protected by firewalls... Kyle